I thought I'd ask this question because I haven't seen many people post that their weight goes below their target. It seems like it's always the "upward creep" that happens. What's been your experience?

I especially am curious because my naturally normal-weight SO lost a couple of pounds with the flu a few months ago, and hasn't regained that weight. And it's not that there is any kind of diet plan involved.

So, does your weight sometimes drop without effort and surprise you, or is it the opposite? When your weight goes up, do you always have to struggle to get it back down?

Jay

I've never, ever inadvertently lost weight but wouldn't that be lovely? It's an interesting question, Jay, and I too am curious if anyone here has ever had that experience. You and I both have "naturally thin" SOs, so it's always instructive to see how different their weight and food issues are.

Those of us who have lost a significant amount of weight are probably maintaining at a lower weight than our bodies would naturally gravitate towards if no thought was given to eating and exercise. Personally, I'm convinced that my setpoint is still somewhere around 250 pounds. So it takes constant awareness of what and how much I'm eating in order to keep my weight where I want it to be. If I lose focus a bit or have a dinner out or a weekend trip, bam, a few pounds are always right back on. It makes sense that my body would move toward its natural weight if I'm not paying attention, and its natural weight is significantly higher than my preferred maintenance weight.

To me, it's just another example of how I may look "normal" on the outside but am very different from "normal" on the inside. My brain and body don't operate like those of a never-obese person. The good news is that after all these years, I know exactly what to do and how to deal with these little blips upward. Regain happens when little gains aren't dealt with right away and are allowed to become bigger and bigger until they're overwhelming.

I am below target but it hasn't been by accident. I have to think about my weight all the time or it will start to creep up.

Hmmm . . . I wasn't quite sure how to answer the poll. In general, it only creeps up. However, right when I hit my goal weight, it did continue to go down for a few months before stabilizing, so I guess in that sense it did "creep down."

It did happen to me initially, my weight crept down from about 135 to 127 with very little effort. I now experience more of the upward creep, though. I attribute this to my comfort in my years of maintenance. In the beginning, I was rigidly on plan for maintenance, now I am a little more loose and free so it makes sense that I would tend to gain weigh it I occasionally eat more than I plan.

Compared to a "typical" person, I have the eating habits of a monk. Salads for lunches, never a donut, no fast food, no soda, big servings of vegetables. I'm always surprised how LITTLE it takes offplan to gain a few pounds. It's not like I ever go crazy and eat 6 donuts or a carton of ice cream or a big burger and fries (all my old bad habits). A little extra dessert here, a few biscottis with coffee there, an extra piece of bread out of the basket, 2 glasses of wine - BOOM! tight pants. At least I listen to my tight pants now

I had 120# set as my original goal. I eat South Beach now and was a Weight Watcher member in the past. I had always struggled with maintaining at 120-125# previously, so I was pleasantly surprised when my weight on SB continued to go down. I got as low as 112# last winter, but have gradually come back up to 115-116#. If I exercise intensely it goes under 115# again. Gives me an excuse to not work too hard! I feel like my body is very happy with what I am eating now and is functioning and metabolizing at its optimum.

No, it hasn't. If I lose, it's because I am on it like a duck on a junebug.

Ha! I wish My weight is in its happy place sadly and I have to work super hard to break the barrier although recently it decided (with plenty of help from my uncontrolled eating) to creep up from its happy place. I'm now back around the happy place weight and seeing what I can do to go below that.

This spring I got a bit off track and was eating lots of fast food (not binging; healthful choices to the degree possible, but you know the problem with that!) and not exercising. And I kept creeping downward. I was amazed - not happy amazed, just surprised. But I was of course losing muscle. But eventually it caught up to me and I gained it back.

But we all have had times when we lost faster on plan than we did at other times when we were just as on plan. Isn't that kind of the same thing as drifting downward when just living to maintain? Losing faster (or at all) than expected?

Mine goes up and down - at the beginning of maintenance it kept going down for almost ten pounds past goal. I've come back up and settled at a little higher weight than I wanted originally, but it goes up and down around that point pretty regularly. When it creeps up it isn't usually a struggle to get it back down, when it occasionally gets to low it is pretty easy to get it back up a little. I gave myself a redline at the bottom of my weight range as well, because I know that I'll see the lower number and start thinking about going lower... Setting a bottom line keeps me from going crazy.

All that being said, right now I'm on more of a goes up, comes back down to same start, goes up, goes back down to same start pattern, haven't had any lows the last three months or so. I think I have also become comfortable in the maintenenace so I'm not controlling quite so tightly like I was at first.

Creeping down? On it's own? Oh no, no, no, no, no, no....

I am lower then my target weight though. At least my original target weight. But that's because I worked to get there.

I am always swinging back and forth 5 lbs. It's even been a bit more a couple of times. Is it a struggle to get back down? I wouldn't call it a struggle, per se'. It's just doing what I do. Like Glory, it doesn't take much at all to make my weight creep UP. It's that one planned "treat" meal that does it. I know me by now. I eat "off" (and I do) intentionally and I KNOW my weight's going to go up. And then I know I'm going to get it back down. It's my "pattern".

Although lately it has taken me a bit longer to get it back down. Which I'm none too happy about. We'll see. Hopefully this is not a new pattern I've fallen into.......

Yes, but it turns out that my thyroid medication needed to be adjusted. Now I have a really hard time making that scale go down, but then again I'm not trying that hard.

Mine creaps up for sure if I'm not vigilant, one slip up and the weight creeps up...

Ok, could the 9 who said "yes, it happens to me" please share?

I voted "no, it never happens to me", but it did happen once in my life. However, it's crept down once, crept up 200 times or so, so the crept up won. It happened the spring of my sophomore year in college. I was taking a heavy courseload that included organic chemistry. Unless you're the one person who actually gets organic chemistry out of each class of 100 students or so (if you are, I don't want to talk to you ), have ever met a bio student etc. you know orgo is the class from H-E- double hockey sticks. Between the orgo, the rest of my classes, my 20-hour-a-week work study job, and my a cappella group I barely stressed out. I didn't have free time, I just studied orgo. I would eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner but just hardly ate snacks b/c I was always on the go or sitting in the library. I walked all over campus but didn't exercise other than that. I also almost gave myself a mental breakdown.

If that's what it takes to get my weight to "creep" down without thinking about it, no, thank you. It's never happened since, but I've also had no more near mental breakdowns, so all in all I'll take that trade. The creep up is really the result of an extra treat here, glass of wine there, etc. - just too many treats and extra bits of food.

Wow Megan, I have such terrible memories of organic chemistry.... I think I actually gained 20 pounds during it because I had a nasty habit of sitting to study with snacks, then going to the vending machine or back to my room for more snacks every time I needed a break, which was all the darn time...